Closure: Part 2 (Season 2, Episode 3)
Premise: A new rape matching Kenneth Cleary’s method reunites the detectives with his first known victim, who has been following him herself.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 2, Episode 3
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March)
- Guest stars
- Tracy Pollan as Harper Anderson, Neil Maffin as Kenneth Cleary, Evy O’Rourke as Meredith Cleary, Stina Nielsen as Lori Thatcher, Doris Belack as Judge Margaret Barry
- Director
- Jean de Segonzac
- Writers
- Story: Dawn DeNoon & Lisa Marie Petersen; Teleplay: Judith McCreary & David J. Burke; Story & teleplay: Wendy West
Summary
“Closure: Part 2” starts with an anonymous 911 call reporting a rape in progress at 88 West Franklin. Benson and Stabler find Lori Thatcher in her shower: a man came in by the fire escape, covered her eyes, raped her while asking “Is this how you like it?”, made her bathe and took her necklace. The method matches Kenneth Cleary, a suspect the squad could not hold in an earlier case. The call came from a pay phone where a newsstand owner noticed a blonde woman, and a minute later the same phone was used to dial Cleary’s house.
Munch and Fin learn from Meredith Cleary that a woman keeps calling to say her husband is a rapist, and the first call traces to Harper Anderson, one of Cleary’s earlier victims, who has been tailing him. Harper insists she watches from a legal distance, but she then confronts the Clearys outside their home, and Stabler has to threaten her with handcuffs. Without probable cause, Cabot backs detectives watching Cleary on their own time. His firm, Miro Venture Capital, often sends him to Philadelphia, where three rapes fit his travel dates and his method, so Munch and Fin ride his train and interview the victims there.
Stabler gives Meredith a list of jewelry taken in the rapes, and she turns in six matching pieces her husband left her as surprise gifts. Benson, meeting Harper at a firing range, takes an illegal 14-round magazine from her .50-caliber pistol. Cleary is arrested, Lori and another victim pick out his voice in a lineup, and bail is set at $1 million on charges that include first-degree rape and second-degree robbery. Judge Margaret Barry rules that spousal privilege confines Meredith’s testimony to when and from whom she received the jewelry.
At trial, defense lawyer Milton Shoenfeld plays a recording of a co-worker’s voice that Lori fails to recognize. Meredith links a garnet necklace to the day after a Philadelphia rape, but then describes how the gifts excited her husband and screams at him, and the judge grants a mistrial and rebukes Cabot.
Spoiler, the ending: Over drinks, Cabot tells Cragen the case cannot be retried and suspects Meredith wrecked it on purpose. A call then brings the detectives to the Cleary home, where Kenneth Cleary has been shot. Meredith says he kept hitting her when she came to collect things for her son, Harper admits she scrubbed up with bleach, which spoils any gunshot residue test, and when asked who pulled the trigger, one of the women says she did. The episode ends there.
Why it stands out
- The episode concludes a story begun in Season 1, Episode 10, with Tracy Pollan back as Harper Anderson.
- Doris Belack makes a special appearance as Judge Margaret Barry.
- Munch and Fin, newly paired, follow the suspect to Philadelphia, a city whose sex-crimes unit is said to be under review.